Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Anime Review: Fairy Tail

Fairy
Tail is about Lucy Heartfilia, a 17-year old girl who wants to be a
full-fledged mage. One day, while walking around town, she meets Natsu, a young
man who easily gets motion sickness. It turns out that Natsu is a member of
Fairy Tail, one of the most famous mage guilds.

The
series actually starts interestingly. It shows a lot of promise as a
long-running Shounen anime -- solid world, diverse characterization, thematic
music, and unique art style. But the problem is, it is lacking in the most
important department -- story.

Fairy
Tail is the kind of long-running Shounen that has no direct goal. Luffy wants
to be the Pirate King. Naruto wants to be Hokage. But what does Fairy Tail
have? It is mainly about the missions and adventures of the feature characters
Lucy, Natsu, Gray, and Erza. Some may argue that Natsu’s search for the dragon
Igneel is the real goal of Fairy Tail. But this is obviously not the case. It
isn’t incorporated much in the story arcs to pass as such.

Igneel

Don’t
get me wrong, though. Fairy Tail does have a story. I’m just saying that it has
no direct purpose to hook viewers fully, because the story is not
all-encompassing.

The
story of Fairy Tail is told in story arcs that almost appear to be standalone,
meaning that they don’t really interweave to form a singular story. But there
are plot points and plot elements here and there that form mysteries and
revelations, giving the impression that Fairy Tail actually has an overall
story slowly being revealed and hidden at the same time.

This
technique is somewhat similar to One Piece, only that One Piece actually has a real,
singular story divided into story arcs. I admit though that Fairy Tail’s
approach is much more stylish and diverse because One Piece’s style has the
tendency to be monotonous. But other than that, I think Fairy Tail’s approach
is still inferior. Again, the reason for this is the lack of a legitimate overall
story, so the approach just appears to be a heap of unresolved plot points and senseless
plot elements.

Their own blandness pisses them off

As
for the characters, Fairy Tail is pretty flat for a long-running Shounen anime.
The characters have no real depth. They are just recognized from their
distinguishable traits, like how Natsu is always nauseous in transportation and
Gray is always stripping. They are not entirely flat though. I have seen their
motives and their beliefs in the long run. The problem is, they lack the qualifications
to be main characters in a long-running Shounen anime. They are just not deep
enough.

Despite
this flaw, it is still very fun to see the characters interact with each other,
as their distinguishable traits clash with one another, creating a sense of
uniqueness, and, oddly enough, belongingness.

This
sense of belongingness, sense of nakama power, is another factor that has
destroyed Fairy Tail. In the long run, it has turned into a cheesy excuse for
everything. In the early parts of the series, this nakama spirit is still very
acceptable, since it is included in the generic formula of creating a Shounen
anime. The real problem is when a series has already developed far enough and
still the nakama excuse is used excessively.

The
reason why this is very problematic is the fact that it turns into an
unimaginative cop out to certain conflicts. This nakama power-up has been used
on very desperate situations, and I couldn’t help but think it to be very
cheesy and uninspiring, especially if it is used almost every time the
characters are in the middle of conflicts.

If
there is a redeeming factor for Fairy Tail, that is the thematic music. The
soundtracks are mainly Celtic, with the occasional incorporation of flute and
choir. Yasuharu Takanashi definitely did a good job.

Nakama power

Overall,
I think Fairy Tail is a long-running Shounen anime that has most of the
ingredients to make it successful. The only department it lacks is story. In
truth, its pseudo-One-Piece style storytelling is really interesting, so I
wouldn’t really call it as all bad. The real culprit that makes Fairy Tail bad
is the whole nakama thing, and how it has been used excessively until it has
become cheesy.

As
of now, the anime is on hold, but it is expected to come back soon. Maybe I
would still subscribe to it once it goes back on air, and hope that, maybe,
just maybe, it fixes the problems that prevent this promising title from being
great.

About The Author

You can call me Arvin Saints, but that is not my real name. I use that name in all my legitimate social media accounts. It’s not that I don’t want to directly associate myself to the cyber world. The name is simply an inside joke among my compatriots.